Facebook Changes Ad Policy, Promises To Keep Ads Off Controversial Pages & Groups

Starting Monday, Facebook will use a new review process to decide when it’s okay to show ads on Pages and Groups — a process that will expand the company’s list of Pages and Groups that are restricted from showing ads because of the content they offer.

The new policy comes in response to recent complaints from advertisers whose ads were showing up on controversial Pages and Groups, as well as additional complaints about Facebook’s overall content policy.

In today’s announcement, Facebook says it’ll remove ads from the expanded list of restricted Pages and Groups by the end of next week.

Beginning on Monday, we will implement a new review process for determining which Pages and Groups should feature ads alongside their content. This process will expand the scope of Pages and Groups that should be ad-restricted. By the end of the week, we will remove ads from all Pages and Groups that fall into this new, more expansive restricted list.

For example, we will now seek to restrict ads from appearing next to Pages and Groups that contain any violent, graphic or sexual content (content that does not violate our community standards). Prior to this change, a Page selling adult products was eligible to have ads appear on its right-hand side; now there will not be ads displayed next to this type of content.

Facebook will use a manual review process in the beginning, but says it plans to create an automated system for keeping ads away from controversial content.